Ars Technica collects a number of forum posts indicating that customers who bought their copies of Dragon Age: Origins via digital distribution from Steam or Impulse are having difficulties getting the DLC included with their purchase. They outline problems downloading the DLC as accounts on both EA.com and the beta BioWare Social Network are required, saying some users have not been able to get this process to work. They also report the process is even trickier for Impulse customers, as Impulse does not automatically install the required update service, and addressing this requires jumping though some hoops, and even worse, some copies of the game bought through Impulse won't authenticate after getting the DLC. They summarize this saying: "The main issue is that EA and Bioware used the launch as an excuse to force consumers to create accounts on their sites, and the process of linking Bioware and EA accounts seems either too complicated or completely broken for many users. Why not allow you to download the content directly from the in-game menu? Maybe they want your information. Maybe this is another way they feel they're stopping piracy." The story has been updated since it was first posted with a statement from Stardock about Impulse problems:

While we are aware of the folks having issues with the DLC, we are also experiencing thousands of people playing the game with no hiccups on Impulse. For those few who are indeed experiencing issues with authentication due to EA's process, we are working now on a fix and expect this problem to be remedied very shortly.